Reflector advancements are dead

[2xTrinity]

exactly, "can not prevent":
5 % loss at entering the media (=optic)
5 % loss at sides/back
5 % loss at leaving the media
= same as a reflector,
but no spill in beam - if someone wants that

Sure you can prevent those. Use anti-reflective coatings on the entrance/exit points, and high-reflective coatings on the sides/back. Coated TIR can theoretically be almost 100% in terms of both light transmission efficiency, and they can collimate a greater fraction of the light to begin with than a reflector as well. I'm sure the only reasons this hasn't been done are economic (not too much of a market for a super-fancy TIR lens meant for flashlights outside of CPF I suspect...) Hopefully though as LEDs begin to start replacing halogens for things like storefront spot-lighting more energy will be put into designing good TIR optics.

 

[orbital]

+

Thanks everyone for your time and posts.
Don, its an honor.

I thought this thread may fire some people up, and thats good because it forces us to think outside the box.
There are endless possibilities in ultra reflectives and shapes, to optics, maybe LED dome shape's'.....and brilliant combinations.....

 

[DM51]

I doubt we will see companies spending a lot of of R&D money improving low-end reflector systems, i.e. the sort most of us use in our lights.

Why spend large sums of money trying to improve a reflector by say 5% (difficult to achieve) when all you have to do is wait a month or two and the latest bin LEDs have improved by much more than that? It is obviously going to be cheaper to stick with the existing range of reflectors, if they do a reasonable job, and use the latest LEDs to achieve the desired extra output. Improvements of less than ~25% are barely noticeable to even a discriminating consumer anyway.

For high-end (very expensive) reflectors, the story may well be different, but until technological improvements made in that area can be easily and cheaply replicated for the mass market, we consumers won't see any change.

 

[Ra]

Sure you can prevent those. Use anti-reflective coatings on the entrance/exit points, and high-reflective coatings on the sides/back. Coated TIR can theoretically be almost 100% in terms of both light transmission efficiency, and they can collimate a greater fraction of the light to begin with than a reflector as well. I'm sure the only reasons this hasn't been done are economic (not too much of a market for a super-fancy TIR lens meant for flashlights outside of CPF I suspect...) Hopefully though as LEDs begin to start replacing halogens for things like storefront spot-lighting more energy will be put into designing good TIR optics.

Sure you can prevent those ???

Trinity, I still like to know where his 5+5+5% are based on: even the commonly aviable, uncoated TIR's do better than that !!


Regards,


Ra.

 

[cryhavok]

Ra,
Any chance we could get a photo of the TIR you made in action? It would be interesting to see a shot of your TIR done in the same fashion as the pictures yellow posted.

 

[Ra]

Ra,
Any chance we could get a photo of the TIR you made in action? It would be interesting to see a shot of your TIR done in the same fashion as the pictures yellow posted.

Ofcource I can:

And with camera a little further away:

The TIR on the pics is not finished: the circle of light on the floor below is about 4% reflection at the front-surface: that will be gone and added to the main beam when the TIR is coated..

Let me know what you think of this..


Regards,

Ra.

 

[Ra]

And this is the pattern of my new Microblaster:

The optic inside has 15.5mm diameter and is multilayer coated..

Regards,

Ra.

 

[yellow]

simply: this pic is great, :thumbs up:
I just knew acrylic optics by now and here is almost no light at all sides and back
(btw: how come You can produce glass optics?)


As far as has been the "thumb rule" by now, the 5 % is an optimum! value of light loss, when there is a media transition. Only special coatings might be better, while normal lenses, optics, ..., will be worse
(media transition= from air to transparent media, or reverse)

PS: I own a few lights with a TIR and I hate that kind of beam, its useless. (just got them to act as hosts)
When riding a bike, maybe such a beam is good for not blinding someone on the street with spill, but one could also point the "main beam" (of a flashlight ) down and not have it light horizontally. Also I do like not to hit some low hanging objects with my head because the "no spill" did not show it.

 

[DM51]

Ra, that little Microblaster is just beautiful...

 

[Robocop]

I remember reading long past about a light that a member was playing around with and it had a radical reflector design.....cant find it for some reason however I believe it was McGizmo.

Seems like I remember the reflector having 2 sections that collapsed inward with one setting allowing a flood then when extended out the same reflector gave more throw.....anyone else remember that thread???

If I remember correct it was made almost like placing several cones inside one another or say using a 20mm reflector with a smaller 17mm reflector inside. I may be wrong however I swear I remember something like this and have searched the archives with no luck.

 

[cryhavok]

Ra,

Thanks! Those are some excellent shots...They really show the potential of a real TIR.

 

[mahoney]

The two part reflector is indeed McGizmo's work. Here's a link

http://dmcleish.com/CPF/zoom-reflector/index.html

 

[tebore]

Ra you should really sell some of those things. Or Patent it and sell the idea to someone who could make them.

They look so cool.

 

[Ra]

Ra you should really sell some of those things. Or Patent it and sell the idea to someone who could make them.

They look so cool. :drool"

I think selling these is not going to happen: For me, making just one takes two full days!! (and beleve me, I'm fast!!..). In that time, at least some 500 of those acryllic optics leave the factory!
Mine are just about 5% more efficient. Do you think there is a market for that??

OK.,, Apart from the 5% extra efficiency, there are other reasons for a glass based TIR: Much lower thermal expansion. Much harder material: You can easily clean them with most solvents without damaging them, preserving the total reflection inside.

Ofcource, being from massive material, glass based TIR's only are usefull for use with small torches up to perhaps 50mm TIR-diameter. Go beond that, and they meight become too heavy.



Regards,

Ra.

 

[chesterqw]

Ra, you just owned INOVA pityful TIR's optic ***.

your optic has no light esacaping from the sides!!!!

how the heck did you keep the surface of it clean?

your optic perform like it would on the book...

heck, if i have to pay $10~$20 of that reflector, i would.(of course, it depends on my pocket too)

 

[Dr.Glock27]

I own a hospital and my optomitrist an I share the same passion: flashlights. He just developed a new reflector that is actually made of glass. He utilized the same principles of fiber optics and ultra polished the lens similar to an aspheric type. I'll try to share a photo if we will be able to perfect the system. This I assure you--it converts a P2D CE to a monster thrower.:twothumbs

 

[Bort]

Hi Gunner12,

I must slightly correct you on something:

If you talk about 3% loss of light, it would mean 97% bulblumens are converted into torchlumens.. That is not the case:

The conventional shape of most reflectors causes a loss of bulblumens, which is much more than 3%.. more like 25-35%

The high reflectivity of the reflector in my mini-HID shurely contributes in a better bulblumens-torchlumens ratio, but the most important is the the fact that the high reflectivity preserves the surface brightness of the source. Better throw is the result of that.


As for most efficient reflectors: Few months ago, I made a glass-TIR reflector (Total Internal Reflection) for use with the Seoul SSC P4 emitter..

The theroretics behind it:

Shot at 2007-09-28



A 30mm diameter version I finished earlier:

TIR means 100% reflection inside the reflector (optical fact, law of light). That, with a collimating lens at the center, and high performance coatings, creates a whopping 95% total efficiency. And this indeed does mean converting 95% bulb-(or emitter-) lumens into torchlumens!



I already build a light with a glass-TIR 15.5mm diameter reflector:

When I have the time, I will post a thread on this light in the Custom/modified section of these forums..



Regards,

Ra.

Excellent work, Sir! :twothumbs

 

[wakibaki]

Bort

Please do not quote high-bandwidth posts for mere sycophantic congratulation.

w

 

[DM51]

At least Bort's post was polite. Yours, however, was somewhat deficient in that respect.

 

[Size15's]

Steady-on guys - we appreciate your desire to try to help our CPF community but as you may be able to appreciate, CPF Staff are interested in reducing disruption - and in this case - the in-public bickering has caused more disruption than the reason for the bickering in the first place.

A polite word in email/pm to a CPF Moderator or Administrator about something is much more likely to have a positive (less disruptive) outcome.

Regards,
Al